President’s Message: February 2018

February 28, 2018

How Are We Doing?

As you may recall, in the fall of last year we conducted a member survey to measure your level of satisfaction with the benefits and service you derive from your WMIA membership, and the overall value of your membership experience. We’re always interested in finding out what the Association does well, what if anything needs improvement, and what new benefits or services members would like to see added.

For the survey, we used the same questions we utilized in the last survey we conducted in May 2015. Doing so provided us a benchmark against which to measure the results from this year’s survey.

WMIA’s Board and staff were very pleased with the results of the survey. Overall, members are much happier with their membership and the work of the Association than they were in 2015. Most notably, 90% of members who responded rated their membership value as excellent or very good, compared with 59% of members responding the same way in 2015. That’s pretty significant progress.

When members were asked to rate the Association’s performance in certain activities, nearly every activity was rated excellent or very good by more than 85 percent of respondents. These activities included: ensuring the vibrancy and value of IWF by providing space discounts and other programs; ensuring the future of the industry through awarding scholarships; holding an annual conference which provides business and professional development; providing opportunities to for members to network and connect with one another; partnering with related organizations on issues/programs of mutual importance; and advocating for the interest of members with standard-setting organizations like ANSI and ISO.

Members told us that the most valuable benefits were networking with industry peers, the opportunity to participate in the annual Woodworking Industry Conference (WIC), WMIA News, and public policy advocacy on behalf of the industry. When we looked at the responses of individual member categories, the most valuable benefits differ in magnitude of importance.

For example, Importer members said the discount on IWF exhibit space, networking with industry peers, and the opportunity to participate in WIC were the most valuable benefits, in that order. Distributor members named networking with industry peers, participating in WIC, and WMIA Distributor Forums most valuable, while Associate members said networking with industry peers and the discount on IWF exhibit space were most valuable.

The survey results provided the Board and staff with input on new benefits for members, and some of those are already in the works, so stay tuned. Additionally, we also received valuable feedback on where the Association can improve—namely, educating potential customers about the importance of investing in new machinery and technology, and more effectively promoting the industry as a whole. These are programs WMIA’s Marketing Committee will be working on with the staff over the next few months.

We are tremendously grateful for the positive feedback you’ve shared with us, and we’re not content simply to sit back and enjoy the status quo. We’re always hard at work finding new ways to enhance the overall membership experience, and increase the value you derive from being a WMIA member. As always, I encourage you to reach out with any suggestions, questions, or comments—I can be reached at 571-279-8341 or lhoffer@wmia.org.